I am Colleen Wainwright, AKA “the communicatrix.”

Right. That’s me. Now, what’s this site about?

This site is where I filter random intake through my off-kilter consciousness in an effort to be useful and/or amusing (which, let’s face it, is often the most useful thing of all).

So how is this crap potentially useful?

I wondered that myself for a long time. And when my need to understand finally outgrew my fear of asking for help, I put the question to the people who read and comment here regularly. They are very smart, these people—seriously, the comments on this site are often vastly superior to my own observations—and very nice, too. (You are probably very nice if you are still reading this. There’s a way things work.)

Working from this feedback, I’ve distilled down to a savory essence why you might enjoy this site.

Some people connect with stories, not how-tos.

I wish I could remember the source, probably one of the amazing comments I am fortunate enough to get on a regular basis, but I read something somewhere about biographies being the best kind of self-help books.

Boy, did that strike a chord with me. As a big reader and equally big self-improvement nerd, I spent much of my life seeking books that would help me become a less miserable human being. There is a boatload of literature out there on self-improvement, but most of it is less than compelling. (And some of it is downright harmful.)

Biographies, on the other hand, by a writer good enough to get a contract, and about someone who had a fair amount of actual obstacles that they actually overcame. (Obstacles = compelling drama, a little lesson I didn’t learn until after I got out of the screenplay business, unfortunately.)

So you learn at least as much reading good biographies as much as you do by reading self-help books, with the bonus-extras of:

(a) Proven theories
(b) Slightly better odds for objectivity
(c) An actual story, sometimes with salacious details
(d) Writing good enough that you do not feel the urge to stab your eyes out with a fork

What I do here is put my life on display, not as an exercise in vanity, but as a kind of science project, albeit with more jokes and swearing than I remember from high school chemistry. The truth is (and I am kind of a stickler for the truth) I was a big, unhappy dumbass in a lot of ways for great swaths of my life. Now, miraculously, at 54+, I am a reasonably content person who’s learned a bit along the way. Enough that I can examine what’s still a little wonky in a fruitful way, and share the exploration and discovery process with other interested parties. (That would be you, hopefully.)

Some places to start exploring…

…if you like essays, poems, or video, the shortlists atop the middle column

…or…

Thanks for coming. I hope you enjoy my site. I hope you subscribe and tell your friends and they come and subscribe, and that it makes all of you happy, fulfilled, thin, incredibly good-looking and rich. And subscribed. But mostly, I hope you will share your own journey—in the comments, via email, or in person someday. Because when you come down to it, nobody ever laid on his deathbed and said, “I wish I hadn’t said that thing on Colleen’s blog…”